Contents

Biography

In 1963, a group of radicals in the Soviet-controlled East Berlin discovered a piece of an old HYDRA technology; the leaders of S.H.I.E.L.D. decided to send an agent to Berlin and stop them from reverse-engineering it. Howard Stark confronted Pym about giving S.H.I.E.L.D. his Ant-Man Suit. However, Pym was unwilling to give his suit to anyone else, so Agent Peggy Carter had to convince him to go to Berlin personally. To see if the suit actually worked, she fired a few bullets at Pym, and he became small like an ant in the blink of an eye.

In Berlin, Pym successfully snuck past the Berlin Wall only to be spotted by a guard dog. Pym managed to escape however by jumping on an anti-personnel device which then fired him to safety. He made his way into the radicals' headquarters by controlling a flying ant. He discovered that the group had not even built the device yet. He then heard screams and found a group of HYDRA scientists torturing a prisoner. Hank intervened and defeated them, liberating the prisoner in the process. Back at the S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters, Stark thanked Pym and told him that was his last mission but Pym refused realizing there were more problems in the world. Still only trusting himself to wear the Ant-Man suit, Pym decided to continue to do field missions.

During a mission in 1987, Hank and his and wife, Janet van Dyne who was known as the Wasp, were trying stop a Russian ICBM in flight. Hank was unable to shrink down enough to disarm the missile, Janet with no other choice sacrificed herself by shrinking down to the Quantum Realm to disarm the warhead. After, Janet is presumed dead and Hank stricken with grief stop being Ant-Man. He sent his young daughter, Hope van Dyne away to a boarding school. In 1989, Hank resigns from S.H.I.E.L.D. after they had try to recreate the Pym Particles. After, Hank created his own company named Pym Technologies.

When Jane Foster's equipment was stolen, Henry Pym was referred to by Erik Selvig as the friend that he was going to email that has had previous experience with S.H.I.E.L.D., though his name was ommited from the scene.

Hank gets invited to a presentation at Pym Technologies the company he founded. He runs into Hope Van Dyne and his former protege, Darren Cross who shows him a prototype of The Yellowjacket suit, modeled after the Ant-Man suit that he wore. Darren has not had success at shrinking living tissue. After he and Hope talk about how to stop Darren. Hope asked Hank to give her the suit, but he refused. He told her he "found a guy". Hank than went to his housekeeper Emily who is dating Ignacio, who had a friend named Ernesto who is the cousin of Luis who is the best friend of former thief Scott Lang, who Hank had been watching for sometime.

Hank set up the break-in of Scott's team, he watch Scott break into his vault, taking the Ant-Man suit back to his apartment. On the next day, Scott put on the suit, Hank talk Scott through it. After, Scott broke into Pym's house again to return the suit but was caught by police officers called by Hope van Dyne who were waiting outside. In jail, Hank said he were Scott lawyer to the police. In holding, he offers Scott two choices, life in prison or follow his instructions. Scott is thoroughly bewildered, so Hank tells him that he allowed him to steal the suit. Scott is taken back to his cell, and an army of ants brings him back the suit. He puts it on and shrinks, and then quickly escapes from the prison. One of Hank's ants spreads its wings, and Scott climbs on and flies over the city.

The next morning back at Hank's house, Scott met Hope than Hank tells Scott that he invented the suit, but was afraid it would be misused, and so he had locked it away and how Darren Cross had replicate his technology, and that Hope is their inside woman, seeing how dangerous Darren becoming. Hank tells Scott that he needs him to become "Ant-Man". Both Hank and Hope start training Scott how to use the suit and fight. Hank catch Scott trying to upgrade the suit, he warns Scott not to remove the safeguards of the suit, warning without them he will go "Subatomic" becoming trap in the Quantum Realm. Later, Hank explains the truth about Hope's mother died. Saying Janet had a similar suit, and she was called "The Wasp". She decided to go subatomic to stop the missile launched at the U.S, but she couldn't return and was lost in the quantum realm.

Hank send Scott to steal a device from an abandoned building that once belongs to Howard Stark, unknowingly that it is now the New Avengers' headquarters. Where Scott briefly fights Sam Wilson, he was able to escape with the device. That night, Darren were at the house. Darren invited him to Pym Technologies, he wanted Hank to see the grand unveiling of the Yellowjacket. After Darren leaves, he called Hope and tells her that he will increased security at Pym Technologies. Scott than brought in Luis, Kurt and Dave for the heist.

On the night of the heist, Hank was almost held up by Officer Jim Paxton and his partner Gale outside of Pym Technologies. But Dave he drove off with their cop car. Once inside he meet up with Hope, they went to the demonstration room with Darren, where the Yellowjacket is held. Meanwhile Kurt is able to disable the security and Luis disguised himself as a security guard turn on the water for Scott to plants explosives throughout the building, But Darren revealed that he had known all along of Hank's plans. When Scott attempts to steal the Yellowjacket, Cross sets a trap, intending to sell both the Yellowjacket and Ant-Man suits to HYDRA. Hank attempted to convince Darren not to sell the suits to them, but he refused to listen and threatened to kill Hank. However Scott was able to break free and he and Hope began fighting Darren' guards, Cross managed to shoot Hank in before escaping. Darren gets into a chopper with the Yellowjacket with Scott in pursuit. Hank and Hope than break out by turning a tiny tank to full-size, and ride it out the side of the building. Outside, Hank got medical attention fron a ambulance

The next morning, Hank asked Scott about the quantum realm after his battle with Darren. Scott tells him he don't remember much about it. But Hank has hope that Janet may still be alive, he than found Scott and Hope kissing much to his surprise. After, Hank shows Hope a new version of the Wasp suit, and tells her that it was made by both himself and Janet for her.

Hank and Scott Lang continued to work together, having upgraded the Ant-Man suit. Inspired by Scott's escape from the Quantum Realm, one of the new features allowed Scott to increase in size without the use of Pym discs. Scott claimed to have passed out in Pym's lab after testing this function.

Later when Scott is incarcerated in the Raft prison, he recounts to Tony Stark how Hank had always told him you cannot trust a Stark.

Character traits

Hank is one of the MCU foremost biochemists and physicist. He possesses considerable expertise in numerous scientific fields such as subatomic physics. He discovered a subatomic particles he called the Pym Particles that can shrink a human being to the size of an ant and also maintain their original strength. He created the Ant-Man suit that used the Pym Particles, Hank used the suit against the soviets during the cold war. His intelligence rival that of Howard Stark. Hank is haunted by the loss of his wife, he distanced himself from his daughter, Hope. Hank fear of losing her prevents him from allowing her to used the Ant-Man suit but with time he ultimately accepted her to be the new Wasp.

Despite his success as a scientist and businessman, Hank is kind, caring, polite, selfless, moral and honorable, however, he can also be short-tempered, aggressive and violent if provoked, when he was insulted by S.H.I.E.L.D. Head of Defense Mitchell Carson about not being able to protect his wife, Janet van Dyne, Hank smashed Mitchell's face into the desk to the point where his nose bled and threatened him should he mention his wife ever again, Hank is extremely distrustful of anything related to S.H.I.E.L.D. after they tried to copy the Pym Particles behind his back.

Hank distrusts the Stark family far more than S.H.I.E.L.D., due to the fact that his ex-friend, Howard Stark had a hand in trying to the replicate the Pym Particles, to the point where he doesn't trust anyone with the last name "Stark", although this may seem prejudice; this distrusts of his proved to be correct when, Tony Stark, Howard's son, created Ultron, an artificial intelligence peacekeeping program that almost succeeded in destroying all life on earth, and later when he betrayed the Avengers to enforce the Sokovia Accords.

Powers and Abilities

Powers

Insect Manipulation: Hank, through the use of radio and electric waves and signals accessed with the suit's helmet, later an EMP Communication Device, can communicate with organisms the size of insects, especially ants, mimicking their pheromones and allowing him a rudimentary form of control over these insects.

Former Powers

Size Manipulation: Ability to shrink in size with the help of the Pym Particles and while wearing the Ant-Man suit. The size changing process enhanced his density, momentum, effort, and exertion to super human levels. This, along with, force being compressed during shrinking, granted Hank superhuman strength, and resilience while shrunken. The brief shockwave aura around him caused by size changing charges him with enough momentum to send people flying immediately after returning to normal size. However, the many years of using this shrinking technology took a physical and mental toll on Hank, which forced him to stop being Ant-Man.

Superhuman Strength: While wearing the Ant-Man suit in its miniature form, Hank possessed superhuman strength due to his increased density and compressed energy, enabling him to take out multiple opponents while in small scale. He is said to have the force of a bullet when shrunken, which led him to learn unique fighting skills to avoid killing someone with his strikes.

Abilities

Genius-Level Intellect: Hank is highly intelligent, as he is one of the most intelligent people on the planet; his intellect, rivals that of even Howard Stark.

Master Scientist: Hank is a brilliant scientist; as he has demonstrates knowledge of different disciplines, including biology, engineering, chemistry, and physics; he was also the one who discovered an unknown type of particles (later known as the Pym Particles) that can increase or decrease the size of humans or other objects, Hank even created a suit that can not only harness the Pym Particles by shrink a human being to the size of an insect, yet maintain his human size strength and resilience.

Expert Businessman: Hank made his own successful company; as he managed to run Pym Technologies very successfully for an unknown number of years.

Equipment

Ant-Man helmet: Created by Hank, it has the ability to enable its user to communicate and control Ants.

Behind the scenes

When Edgar Wright was first considering actors for an older Hank Pym. Sean Bean, Pierce Brosnan and Gary Oldman were all considered before Michael Douglas was cast.

Dax Griffin who's Michael Douglas' body double in film bears a striking resemblance of the actor when he was 40.

Trivia

Nathan Fillion was in the running to play Hank before it was decided the character would not appear in The Avengers and never auditioned. He was a fan favorite amongst the comic book community to portray Hank.

In the comics, Hank is roughly the same age as his Avenger teammates, while in the movie, he is older.

In the comics, Pym goes by many different alter-egos including Yellowjacket, Ant-Man, Giant Man, Goliath, and Wasp.